TOKYO -- After surviving two hellish rounds of powerful offense
from Kyoji
Horiguchi, Manabu
Inoue’s comeback rally in the final frame brought Korakuen Hall
to its feet. Despite his best efforts, however, the former
bantamweight King of Pancrase couldn’t take out young prospect
Horiguchi in the main event of Shooto “8th
Round.”

The opening bell saw Inoue wisely work to take the fight to ground
and avoid Horiguchi’s powerful striking. Horiguchi seemed too
strong to handle, as he consistently defended takedown attempts and
replied with powerful hooks that rocked Inoue and forced him to
hold on for dear life.

In round two, Inoue managed to hit a strong double-leg, but quickly
lost his position as the Krazy Bee standout reversed and smothered
him from the half-guard. After a stand-up from referee Toshiharu
Suzuki, Horiguchi landed a hard, straight punch that sent Inoue
reeling backwards and running from vicious combinations. Inoue
scored a reversal after being put on his back and pounded on
Horiguchi until the bell came.

Round three seemed to start bad for the former champ again, as
Horiguchi whipped Inoue to the ground with ease. Inoue began his
comeback rally from there, reversing position yet again and
methodically working through a tired Horiguchi’s guard to side
control. Inoue smothered and pounded on his opponent to deafening
screams and applause from the audience, taking Horiguchi’s back
toward the end and working for the choke until the final bell.

The impressive comeback wasn’t enough to make up for the first two
rounds, as judges Suzuki, Tomohiro
Tanaka and Hiroyuki
Kanno all scored the fight 29-28 in favor of Horiguchi.

“I should really train my grappling more than I do and not just
focus on striking,” said the young winner, post-fight. “I grappled
with him too much and it really took its toll on my stamina. I
should have controlled the distance better in the stand-up. I got
too close, and that allowed him to work for takedowns.”

Horiguchi’s Krazy Bee stablemate, Kotetsu
Boku, had a much easier time in his fight against Shin
Kochiwa. After a brief feeling-out period with Boku’s signature
flicker jabs, he landed a huge right hook that put Kochiwa’s lights
out just 67 seconds into the opening frame, a rare KO for the
veteran out-boxer.

Another Krazy Bee youngster, 2009 Shooto rookie tournament winner
Yusuke
Yachi, had a technical, back-and-forth grappling match with
former Shooto titleholder and WEC veteran Akitoshi
Tamura that lasted all three rounds. Yachi controlled the
takedown game through the match, but Tamura stayed offensive off
his back, threatening with guillotines and omoplatas on multiple
occassions. Yachi’s crisp hip-tosses earned the favor of the judges
as he came up on all three scorecards, 29-28, 30-29 and 30-29.

In strawweight action, two former title contenders went toe to toe,
as Yuki
Shojo welcomed Hiroyuki
Abe back to Shooto after a three fight stint in Pancrase. Abe
landed huge belly-to-belly suplexes and single- leg takedowns to
control the fight in the first two rounds. In the final frame,
however, Abe spent most of the time on his back before standing up
and scoring a leg trip towards the end of the round. The judges
weren’t impressed with the flashy takedowns, and all three gave the
fight to Shojo via 29-28 scorecards.

Earlier in the night, Ryuichi
Miki survived a dangerous heel hook attempt from Fumihiro
Kitahara and caught him with a stiff straight right that put
Kitahara on the canvas. Miki followed up with a few short punches
before referee Suzuki stopped the fight at 4:32 of round one.

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